The CBC has commissioned a Jack Layton biopic. For the segment of the Canadian population that loves to accuse the public broadcaster of a liberal bias, Smilin’ Jack: The Jack Layton Story is a giant ball of catnip.

A laudatory film about the late NDP leader? Outrage! Taxpayer dollars! Why not Irish Eyes: The Brian Mulroney Story or Shawinigan Handshake: The Jean Chrétien Story or Sweater Vest: The Stephen Harper Story?

And, really, in announcing the biopic this week, the broadcaster left itself open to a bit of ridicule with a description of Mr. Layton that would not have been at all out of place at last spring’s NDP convention. It said Mr. Layton became “one of this country’s most treasured federal politicians” and it referred to him and his wife as “a beloved political power couple.”

“Above all,” the press release concluded, “‘SMILIN’ JACK’ is the touching story of a man who reached the hearts of many Canadians, and fought for rights that would ultimately change the face of this country.”

It is worth noting that the latest biopic produced for the CBC by Pier 21 Films, the company behind Smilin’ Jack, was the two-part story of that noted icon of the Canadian left, er, Don Cherry

Whoosh. Perhaps it’s not worth quibbling with subjective terms, but “treasured” and “beloved”? Mr. Layton was, after all, a ruthlessly pragmatic politician. He led the NDP to Official Opposition status by presenting a plan that was at the least aiming for electoral success as much as it was societal good. The Saint Jack tone of the announcement is a bit much. And if the resulting film is a one-sided portrayal that lionizes Mr. Layton as Canada’s fallen political hero, Liberal and Conservative supporters may rightly question when their leaders will get the soft-focus treatment from the CBC.

It is worth noting that the latest biopic produced for the CBC by Pier 21 Films, the company behind Smilin’ Jack, was the two-part story of that noted icon of the Canadian left, er, Don Cherry. This fact, one suspects, will do little to blunt the criticism headed the CBC’s way.

(I asked to speak with someone about the project, by the way, but the broadcaster said no further details were available beyond the effervescent press release.)

All the gushing from the broadcaster rather obscures the fact that, politics aside, the Layton story is a compelling one. Here was a man who was struck down by illness at almost the exact moment of his greatest professional triumph. The fight with cancer prior to the 2011 election, his seeming victory over it, the election campaign in which his cane came to be a symbol of the leader’s pluck, his shocking rise in the polls and the Orange Wave, and then, suddenly, the revelation that he was in poor health and stepping aside from his duties — frankly, it would be implausible as a script were it not for the fact that it happened.

It says here that the Ottawa news conference last summer in which Mr. Layton announced his departure, his voice weak and his appearance that of a deeply ailing man, was as remarkable a bit of theatre, in the realm of politics, as anything a writer could dream up.

It’s an interesting story, no doubt, but it remains that the CBC is giving ammunition to its critics with this project. The next time someone wants to list off its perceived biases, the phrase “commissioned a biopic of the socialist icon Jack Layton” is likely to appear in there somewhere. If the broadcaster’s executives think they have good television with the Layton story, then they deserve some credit for not shying away from a project that invites grief for them.

And until it airs, there is little more to do than speculate on who will portray whom. Howie Mandel as Layton? Rick Mercer, with prosthetic eyebrows, as Michael Ignatieff? Bruce Greenwood as Stephen Harper?

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